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By Alex Kingsbury
Obama administration tries to avoid further strains with Israel
When Turkish activists organized a flotilla of six aid ships to test the Israeli blockade of Gaza, they sought to provoke a response from the Jewish state and draw international attention to the plight of Palestinians living in the coastal territory.
In that, they succeeded. Israeli commandos rappelled from helicopters to the deck of one of the ships and, during clashes with activists, killed nine people, including one American citizen shot four times in the head. The flotilla was in international waters at the time.
The fight over the blockade has pulled in more regional players, including Iran, which announced that it was sending aid ships to challenge the Israeli blockade and offered, though there were no takers, to have Iranian warships escort other blockade runners. Meanwhile, in the wake of nearly unanimous international condemnation, Israel relaxed the three-year ban on some foodstuffs entering Gaza on Wednesday,while Egypt also relaxed its restrictions on entering the
The blockade controversy has complicated Washington's strained relationship with the Israeli government and its broader efforts to build bridges with the Muslim world, Turkey in particular. The incident forced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel a visit to the
The raid and resulting international outcry have shown that the Gaza blockade may now be creating as many problems as it solves. Some 1.5 million Palestinians live in Gaza, which has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007, when radical
While Washington and many in the international community have supported Israel's policy toward Gaza in the past, that support appears to be waning. This week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the situation in Gaza "unsustainable and unacceptable." Vice President Joe Biden said this week that while Israel's tactics could be argued, its basic right to prevent contraband from reaching
International condemnation of the raid was swift, sustained, and nearly universal, with the exception of Washington, which offered only a mild rebuke and urged other nations to await the results of an investigation before assigning blame. Several nations, including Turkey, have withdrawn their ambassadors from Israel. "What has happened is completely unacceptable," British Prime Minister David Cameron told Parliament last week.
Mideast expert Robert Malley, of the
Available at Amazon.com:
At War with the Weather: Managing Large-Scale Risks in a New Era of Catastrophes
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World - Israeli Flotilla Raid Raises Tensions Over Gaza | Global Viewpoint